Can I, in your opinion, achieve quality hearing with any ITE style or is RIC far and away the best choice for me? If ITE is still in the mix, what style specifically?
I can’t see your hearing loss for some reason, but estimating from those gain targets it looks like a great loss for the lyric. I can see why you’re frustrated. In my experience, some of that plugged feeling for reverse slope can be improved by overamplifying the highs relative to what typical targets want, but if you are sensitive to occlusion with the lows an isn’t going to be great.
Have you tried Lucid hearing aids offered at Sam’s Clubs? Disclosure: I am an at a Sam’s Club.
Lucid aids use a totally different algorithm than any other aid of which I’m aware. Whereas other aids use (Wide Dynamic Range Compression), Lucid aids use ADRO (Adaptive Dynamic Range Optimization). The explanation of the differences between the two is the perfect cure for insomnia, but in short, instead of compressing sound to fit a specific sound “picture”, ADRO uses fuzzy logic to optimize output in each frequency linearly. In fact, ADRO is used to some extent in cochlear implants.
I have worked with both WDRC and ADRO. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the feedback from patients who have worn both and love ADRO. Granted, that is anecdotal, but it won’t hurt giving it a shot. A top-of-the-line pair of 128 channel hearing aids at Sam’s runs about $4800. You won’t be able to have a trial run with them, however, as Sam’s is not going to let ANYthing leave the club without it being paid for. That being said, you get a 90 day, no quibble, 100% money back guarantee.
Not trying to advertise. I’m just giving you facts as to what to expect.
One other thing that Lucid does that I didn’t experience anywhere else is a part of the fitting process called Loudness Balance. It essentially takes the place of . What happens is a “first fit” is applied to the hearing aids. Then, the specialist plays a tone at 1.5Hz. You are asked if that tone is a comfortable volume to you, or is it too loud, or too muffled. After that, tones are played at 2k, 3k, 4k, and 6k with the goal of adjusting the volume to equal that of the first tone played. If you are wearing an occluded fit, you will also repeat the process going down the frequency ladder. It’s kind of a cool concept in that it combines verification with validation, giving comfortable, even sound across the sound spectrum. If nothing else, the test and fitting cost you nothing. Trying a whole new algorithm that uses more linear adjustments vs. compression, might give you the sound your looking for.
Your literally the 1st person who thought that Lyrics would appear to be a good for me. The 3 Audi’s I have dealt with locally just didn’t “get it” or fully believe me that I could actually hear very well with them. As I have mentioned, they calm my 24/7 LOUD tuning fork sounding tinnitus like NO other aid I have ever tried.
I think I want to trial some Signia’s next and follow Sierra’s setups and see how that goes. Although my current Audi is reluctant since he doesn’t stock them and with my insurance plan (it’s really just a negotiated discount plan) he claims he’s getting paid peanuts.
To shawn.garza…I was interested in your description of loudness balance. I accidentally stumbled on a way to make some poorly adjusted aids work for me using the piano keyboard instead of tuning forks. When playing notes consecutively up and down the keyboard I noticed there were two spans of notes that were noticeably louder than the others. I mentioned this to my audiologist, but nothing was done to correct it. I came home and started experimenting with various setting of the aids to see if I could get those notes back to the same loudness level as the other keys. In my case, it worked to shift to a speech in noise program and turn the volume of the aids up one notch. I lived for many months with this setting. When the notes were heard in balance I heard other things better too.
I have since had done after resetting the aids completely. That also leaves the piano keyboard sounding balanced, and with that done as a new starting point my aids are working the best they have for me. The Lucid tuning sounds like a valid way to go if REM is not available for some reason.
Ah, your loss shows up for me now. Are you ACTUALLY sensitive to occlusion? When you plug your ears tight with your fingers, do you get a weird, bothersome effect on your own voice? Or can you just not hear well? It may just be a programming issue.
One could, in a pinch, putty a lyric with the settings you prefer into a verification system and then match its output as closely as possible with any old digital hearing aid and see how that sounds. There would need to be adjustments for insertion depth.
It would be interesting to see what the settings are that the Lyric defaults to for your loss, but I can’t do that from my home computer.
I came across the post, having been in the same situation. I appreciate all of the replies and suggestions, but I want to point out that the original poster’s preference for analog is wholly valid. What I don’t understand is why so much time and effort gets put into trying to come up with fixes and workarounds instead of just…making an analog hearing aid again?
I think it is particularly important that audiologists (who are certainly helpful in recommending fixes) understand how pervasive this preference is for analog, given that they are in a better position than patients to communicate this to the manufacturers.
Otherwise, I will only say that what the original poster is probably missing is the fullness of sound from an analog signal; once sonic information is lost during the sampling process, no amount of tinkering can restore it.
Thanks!
Yes…I really can’t emphasize enough how the Lyrics work for me and all the digitals I’ve tried just seem like glorified ear plugs that allow me to hear the damn refrigerator running but I can’t hear the TV in front of me nor my wife speaking to me from the next room…
I’m just very frustrated at this point. I have a local audi willing to work with me on programming etc but it’s literally exhausting. I’m taking a break from seeing him. Hopefully I’ll get more motivated to try again this winter as my work and family schedule is less hectic.
Thanks for the understanding.
Of course – I’m in the same boat really. I really think it’s important to emphasize to audiologists that our preference for analog is stable and not going away. They need to signal to manufacturers that we want and will buy analog devices. We can also contact manufacturers directly, but it’s hard to tell how much our communications get through.
If you have any ideas of your own for how to go about this, I’m all ears.
Texas Hill Country